Tired of reading about science ? In need of a boost to your ego ? You think you are smarter than me ? Can you play chess at a reasonable level ? Or, do you have a chess program and you don't mind cheating ?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, why don't you try to beat at chess a tenured particle physicist with a Ph.D. ? I am willing to take your challenge.

Just download the dasher or the blitzin interface at www.chessclub.com, and log in to ICC - the world's largest online chess club. I will be waiting for you there. My handle on ICC is "tonno". If you type "finger tonno" on the ICC command line you get the following information:

Tonno, by the way, is the italian name of "tuna", a fish not particularly known for its intelligence.

You can log on the ICC as a guest for up to seven days. You will not get a rating, but you can play against members there even if you do not register.

You can just type "match tonno 5 2 u" if you want to challenge me to a blitz game, 5' for the game plus 2" increments per move. The "u" stands for "unrated" -our rating will then not be altered by the result.Or, you can try a longer time control: "match tonno 15 0". Not more than 15' per game, or you will bore me to death.

So, if you feel like giving me a sound beating, just leave a message here. I will be connecting to ICC tonight after 22UT (midnight italian time, 6PM NY time), or tomorrow after 9UT if you ask me to.

And I have even more to offer: the best game will get analyzed and published here!

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